


The Staff of Life

by Mara



Category: Power Rangers Dino Charge
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-02-28 14:29:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13273422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mara/pseuds/Mara
Summary: "Is it just me or are the monsters getting weirder?"





	The Staff of Life

**Author's Note:**

  * For [terrierlee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/terrierlee/gifts).



"Seriously?" Shelby asked, eyes wide as she stared over the top of the computer monitor at the purple Ranger.

Kendall gave her a look that clearly said 'Am I usually joking when I say things like this?'

With a sigh, Shelby went on. "So you're saying that this monster is stealing bread?"

"Is it just me," Riley said, shaking his head, "or are the monsters getting weirder?"

"Not just bread," Kendall went on, carefully ignoring that comment. "It's stealing anything made with flour. Bread, crackers, cookies, cake—"

"Not cake!" Chase said with an exaggerated gasp. "That's clearly a step too far."

Everyone giggled except for Koda and Kendall, but Kendall gave them all a withering glare. "See how funny it is when you encounter hungry children."

Flushed with shame, Shelby looked down at the floor. "Sorry," she mumbled.

"What's its goal?" Tyler asked.

"No idea," Kendall said. "Which is why you're going to patrol in town and see if you can figure that out, while I fine-tune the sensors to find it when it appears."

They knew better than to groan, but a few sighs could be heard from the assembled Rangers.

* * *

Things looked normal as they headed out from the museum. Shelby and Tyler picked a direction and headed downtown, waving at the others as they fanned out. Shelby looked around as they strolled, trying to look inconspicuous. There were some store employees arguing with customers and a truck from Pepperidge Farms that sat empty.

"Why flour?" Shelby asked after a while. "If the goal is to starve humans, it would take everything, wouldn't it?"

Tyler nodded.

They walked on, noting a mostly empty vending machine at the park. "It still has nuts in it," Tyler said. "And some gluten-free chips."

"And potato chips. But man cannot live by potato chips alone."

Tyler grinned at her and they kept walking.

A faint familiar sound turned both of their heads and they jogged toward it. Sitting on the front step of a duplex, there was a little girl crying.

Kneeling in front of her, Tyler spoke quietly. "Hey, what's wrong?"

The girl looked up into Tyler's open and friendly expression. "We can't have the seder," she wailed.

"Er…" Tyler blinked. "The what?"

"There's no matzah and Savta can't make matzah ball soup and it's all ruined!" She sobbed harder, her little shoulders shaking.

Shelby knelt next to Tyler and tried to imitate his tone. "Is it…are you Jewish?"

The little girl stopped crying to give Shelby a withering glare that was a near-duplicate of Kendall's. "Of course I am."

"Of course she is," Tyler echoed with a grin.

Rolling her eyes at him, Shelby turned back to the girl. "So it's a Jewish holiday right now?"

"Pesach starts tonight, silly." The girl's expression turned to sheer condescension.

Tyler made a choked laugh sound and Shelby resisted the urge to smack him. "Okay, so you need…matzah? That's the, uh, crackers."

"Yes, we need them for the seder." The girl stared at both of them and finally seemed to grasp the depth of their ignorance. "It's the special dinner we have for the holiday. We have to eat certain foods in a specific order and we can't finish without the afikomen." She paused, sighing at their looks of confusion. "It's a special matzah, okay?"

"Right," Shelby said, trying to sound confident. "So you need the matzah back in order to celebrate the holiday."

Sniffling, the girl nodded. "It's my favorite an' my Savta came all the way from Hoboken an' she's sad an' so am I."

Tyler nodded firmly. "Okay, we're going to fix this, I promise."

"Yes, we are." Shelby smiled at the girl, trying to project truthfulness.

The girl looked back and forth between them. "You?"

"Yes, us." Shelby nodded with much more confidence. "We know what's causing this and we're going to…fix it."

"Okay," the girl said, sounding extremely dubious.

"It's going to be okay." Tyler ruffled her hair and stood, offering Shelby a hand up as well.

They waved to the girl, and strode away.

* * *

As they turned the corner, Shelby whispered out of the corner of her mouth. "Okay, big shot, what now?"

"I have no idea," he whispered back.

"Well, worst comes to worst, Kendall finds the monster and we beat it up and everything turns out fine." 

They kept circling through town, hoping for some kind of clue, but all they found was stores emptied of everything that contained flour, including rice flour and almond flour and other kinds of flour made from grains that Shelby didn't even know existed. ("This is California," Tyler said with a shrug when she expressed disbelief that some of them were real.)

Finally, tired and annoyed, they made their way back to the museum, where the others were sprawled around the base in various forms of depression.

"This monster is pissing me off," Riley muttered. "Maybe that's the plan."

Kendall was the only person still moving, pacing back and forth, furiously pushing her glasses back up as they slid down. "If only…"

"If only what?" Shelby asked idly.

"If only we still had something made of flour. I'm sure we could bait the monster to appear, since it seems to be sensing the presence of its preferred items in some automatic way."

"It's eaten _everything_ ," Chase said, idly spinning a wheel on his skateboard. "There's not a biscuit to be found and we have no idea why."

Across the base, Koda sat up abruptly. "No."

Silence as everyone looked at him. He looked back.

"Er, no to what?" Kendall asked.

"No, he not eat everything." Koda grinned, jumping up from his chair and running back to his section of the cave.

Shelby frowned, then felt her jaw drop as she looked toward Kendall. "Wait, the base is—"

"—shielded from Sledge," Kendall finished.

"So whatever Koda has stashed away is probably intact," Chase went on, his face lighting up.

Everyone sat up straighter, staring intently at where Koda had gone. Shelby held her breath. Maybe there really wasn't anything. Maybe the monster's magic had somehow sucked it up through the shielding. Maybe…

And then Koda emerged, holding a bag of pretzels and a loaf of bread.

* * *

Before they left the base, they argued over the best location to set their bait. Tyler wanted to try for the vacant warehouse several blocks over, but…

"We don't know how fast this monster will appear," Kendall said, poking at the map. "And if it's too fast, you're going to get caught somewhere between the museum and this playground."

Shelby scowled at the map, irritated because she could pinpoint two dozen locations in town that would be perfect for this, but they were all too far away to take the chance.

"It's gonna have to be the back parking lot, mate," Chase said, clapping Tyler on the shoulder. 

Kendall nodded. "I'll get security to clear as many people and cars as they can."

Sighing, Tyler acquiesced.

When the back lot was as safe as it was going to get, everyone morphed and found a place to stand. Kendall came running out of the base, holding Koda's food, tossing it dead center in the parking lot, and leaping to the top of the building with her scanner in the hopes of getting some kind of early warning.

They waited one minute. Two. Three.

Shelby could hear Tyler muttering under his breath about the warehouse, but she ignored it.

Kendall yelped. "The—"

And the monster was right in the center of their circle, reaching for the pretzels and bread. Tyler was the closest and the first to react, with Shelby right behind him.

They were knocked back by an energy beam. "Hey!" the monster yelled. "What're you doing?"

"What do you _think?_ " Shelby asked, leaping to her feet. "We're stopping you and we're getting back the city's food."

"But I was using it," the monster whined. "I need the calories. I get so hungry!"

"Not our problem," Chase said, circling and looking for an opening.

"If you're hungry, then why just things made with flour?" Shelby asked, flicking a hand signal to Riley to help her next move.

"Dairy and meat give me indigestion."

For a moment, everyone stopped moving as they thought about that. Shelby wanted to facepalm, but knew from experience that didn't work well when she was suited up.

"I have _had it_ with you," Shelby said finally. With another hand signal, she dove in for an attack, with Riley covering her back. The others were right behind her and the monster was down in less than a minute.

* * *

After they defeated his giant form, food started reappearing almost instantly and the team wandered out of the museum to watch people excitedly clutch sandwiches to their chest. Shelby glanced over at Tyler, who was beaming with joy.

Shelby bit her lip, then gestured in the direction they had walked earlier in the day, which made Tyler beam even harder. Setting off down the street, they made their way back to the unassuming duplex they'd stopped at earlier.

Shelby wasn't even sure what she expected. Maybe a kind of "Christmas Carol" moment of peering through the window to see a happy family eating their meal? Or, uh, "Fiddler on the Roof" and people in black coats dancing in the streets?

But the street was quiet, with lights going on inside the homes behind shades and curtains. Chuckling at her own delusions, Shelby focused on enjoying the stroll with Tyler.

They were nearly at the end of the street when a door opened behind them. They turned around as the little girl yelled "Hey!"

"Yes?" Shelby said, smiling.

"You did it!" The girl bounced up and down in the doorway, light streaming from behind her.

"Yeah, we did," Tyler said, grinning at her.

"Eema said if I saw you again, I should invite you in, because that's what we do on Pesach. And it's almost time for me to do the four questions, so c'mon!"

Shelby looked at Tyler, who shrugged. "Why not?"

"Is that one of the four questions?"

"I have no idea," he said.

Shelby looked back at the girl. and grinned at Tyler. "Let's go find out, then."


End file.
